Park Lane South, Queens by Mary Anne Kelly

help.”
    â€œYeah. He’s changed his hiding spots on me, anyhow. I thought I’d give it a go, though. Cut down the smoking at the same time.”
    â€œGive it a go, eh? Well, good luck. What brought this on?”
    â€œUh … Michaelaen, to tell you the truth. He told me I smell like an ashtray.”
    â€œMy son the worrying wart.”
    â€œHe wasn’t worried. He was simply stating a fact.”
    â€œYeah. Well. His little means are more devious than his ways.”
    â€œAs are yours.”
    â€œWhat’s that mean?”
    â€œMeaning you never said a word about the murder since it happened. You just let everybody talk and you listen. Like you’ve got some seedy ideas of your own that you won’t let on about.”
    â€œI don’t. Honest. I wish I did. Look. Maybe it was one of those crimes that never gets solved. Happens all the time. I mean, if the guy had buried the kid, that’s what might have happened. The way I see it, though, is this: he leaves the body in the wide open like that just so people do find it. That’s what worries me.”
    â€œBecause?”
    â€œBecause if no one does find him, he’ll do it again. Maybe. Sometimes it’s some nut job just passing through. Gets off a plane at Kennedy, kills one here, one there along the way … leaving a trail of bodies from here to L.A. You never know. I’ll let you in on something if you promise not to tell anyone.”
    â€œNow who would I tell?”
    â€œI dunno. Carmela. Can’t you just see her doing a daily on the progress of the 102? She eats this kind of stuff up.”
    â€œYou can’t really blame her. It is intriguing.”
    â€œIntriguing? It’s macabre.”
    A bolt of lightning lit up the backyard and rain came down in a sheet. Mary flew into the kitchen with a basketful of laundry. “Not that one of my fully grown daughters would come out and give me a hand!” she cried, but she wasn’t angry, she was thrilled to feel the sudden rain. Her blood pressure was right up there and her cheeks were pink with pleasure. She pounded barefoot through the house, now dark, now bright with the powerful storm.
    â€œNot a word?” continued Zinnie.
    â€œDon’t be silly.”
    â€œWell. Besides his little pocketful of possessions: a boy scout knife, baseball cards, and a couple of other things, the kid had a man’s new cufflink on him. A roulette wheel. Like a real one. With a little bead in it. On the top was a neat little knob that you could spin the bead with.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œâ€˜So’ she says. You’re right. It might mean nothing at all. But if Miguel—that was the kid’s name—if Miguel knew the guy who killed him … if he’d met with him before, that might be just the kind of thing that would entice a little boy into the woods, wouldn’t you say?”
    â€œYes. Except that that could have come from anywhere. His father—”
    â€œDidn’t. They checked.”
    â€œOr an uncle—”
    â€œAn uncle could have killed him, too.”
    â€œWhat a thought!”
    â€œWhat a thought that anybody would have done it.”
    â€œI’ll say one thing. Inanimate objects sometimes carry messages.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œLike from the dead.”
    â€œOh, please stop. You and your heebie-jeebie nonsense!”
    â€œIt’s not nonsense.” And why did a roulette wheel cufflink ring a bell?
    â€œRight. Out with the Ouija board. I could clobber Daddy. He knows how worried I am to have Michaelaen out. Why doesn’t he bring him back? Sometimes I think he’s being purposely annoying. He is. He does it because he thinks that now that the cat is out of the bag and everyone knows that Freddy is gay, that means that Michaelaen is his . It’s like his macho power trip. Meanwhile, he was the one who was so hot on me marrying Freddy in the